


Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

by ficlicious



Series: Aftermath [3]
Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Background Relationships, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Consequences, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Major Character Injury, Not Steve-Friendly, Permanent Injury, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reconciliation, The Avengers Have Issues, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-06-08 17:45:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6866719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficlicious/pseuds/ficlicious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>All that is gold does not glitter,</i><br/>Not all those who wander are lost;<br/>The old that is strong does not wither,<br/>Deep roots are not reached by the frost.<br/>— JRR Tolkein, “All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter”</p><p><i>Then</i> they chose sides and fought each other, and the Avengers broke, blown apart by anger and betrayal and ideological differences. An empire crumbled from the inside. </p><p><i>Now</i> they draw back together, wounded and wary, trying to put the shattered remnants of their family back together. </p><p>Multi-chapter companion piece to <i>Done</i> and <i>Sine Qua Non</i>, each chapter a different member of the Avengers, as they consider (or don't) the parts they played in their civil war.</p><p>
  <b>Part I: Scott<br/>Part II: Natasha</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scott

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, I'd like to remind you that Aftermath is _not_ a verse in which Captain America is the guy who can do no wrong. If you have strong feelings against that, this is not a fic for you. I am not turning on comment moderation, but I can and will delete comments from people who come here to do nothing more than argue that interpretations they don't agree with are wrong.
> 
> There are other fics that will suit your preferences. Go find them instead.

_Then_

He doesn’t know what to think anymore.

His life has been one shitty decision after another, it seems like, especially lately. Not that he regrets making some of those decisions; sometimes, hard choices had to be made. But that doesn’t change the fact that they’re shitty decisions. He’s trusted some sketchy people in his time, but thought he finally had his life back on track — if a very strange, skewing-all-over-the-place track — once he became Ant-Man.

Cos he was a bonafide superhero, one who saved the world, or at least a tiny bit of it, from Darren Cross’s particular brand of insanity.

Who fought the Falcon and didn’t die.

Who _Captain America_ called on when he needed a team to back him up.

Who his daughter could look at, think about, talk to with pride. Because he was a superhero, one of the upholders of truth and justice and all that other crap.

And he’d ended up in prison for it, because of a man Hank Pym said he couldn’t trust. Because Stark and his stooges had cuffed them all, stripped their gear, and thrown them into the most secure facility the US government didn’t officially possess.

He had three weeks in supermax, and six weeks in Wakanda to nurse and nurture his grudge for Tony Stark, a man who had fought him, defeated him, and thrown him in prison without even knowing who he was. It had made him feel so very tiny, and for a guy who shrank to tiny sizes for a living, that was an accomplishment. He’d never see his daughter again. Never see his friends.

Never see Hope again either.

Then the quinjet landed, and Cassie had come down the ramp, healthy and whole. Maggie and Paxton had been understandably upset at being uprooted and unceremoniously shoved into another country for their own safety, but they got it. Not that Scott cared, really. His primary focus was the fact that his daughter was in his arms, and that was all that mattered.

_Hank Pym always said you never could trust a Stark._

Pym had always led him to believe that his history with Howard Stark extended to Tony Stark. Well, okay, maybe _led to believe_ is implying Pym did it deliberately, and Scott doesn’t know that’s the case. But even if it wasn’t deliberate, Pym had no problems letting Scott draw his own conclusions, and just never bothered correcting them.

Just like Cap had kinda sorta in a way led him to believe that his help was needed to back Captain America’s play for psycho assassins, and had never corrected his misperception. Or, more fairly, the half-truth, since there were definitely psycho assassins involved, but they ended up being a huge Macguffin.

But Tony hadn't turned an eyelash when Scott spat the name at him in the Raft. His _who are you?_ was flippant and dismissive, but Scott's kinda figured out by now that Tony had no actual idea who he was. Or who Pym was. That maybe, just maybe, Pym might also have been off base. That maybe he should have listened to the tiny inner voice trying to tell him once again that Pym is a paranoid, bitter old man.

After everything, Cassie and Maggie and Paxton are here, safe from the consequences of _his_ actions, and Tony Stark did that for no other reason than he didn't want Scott's family to pay the price for Scott's on-the-fly decision to get into a car with people he's never met and go to Germany because Captain America needed help.

He promised Maggie he'd be on the straight and narrow after getting out of prison. It was one of her conditions for allowing him to continue to see Cassie. No crime, child support, get an apartment. And he'd been doing so well, theatrics of being Ant-Man aside, right up until the point his phone rang, and Sam Wilson was asking him if he was available for Avengers-related business.

Who'd turn that down?

No one. That's who. No one.

But with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, he knows he probably should have.

Trying to explain things to Cassie hadn’t been easy. Because she wanted to know why, Daddy, why didn’t you sign the Sokovia Accords, like Iron Man and Vision and Black Widow (god, she’s especially obsessed with Black Widow; she must never know that the Widow kicked Daddy’s ass pretty handily when he tried to go hand-to-hand with her.) Keeps asking when he doesn’t have an answer that doesn’t sound like a cheap cop out to his ears.

He keeps trying to come up with a good answer. But he can’t find one.

\-----

Maggie’s pissed, and Scott knows she has every right to be. He’s the one that keeps screwing up her life. First jail, and then Ant-Man, and then Yellowjacket, and then jail again, and now Wakanda. He’s been expecting a blow-up since she stepped off the quinjet, waiting for the hammer to drop down onto his head.

It comes a week after they arrive in Wakanda. Paxton’s got Cassie off somewhere doing something — hiking, maybe. Or had Cassie said something about swimming or rafting or something to do with water? — and Scott’s helping Maggie clear the dishes from their breakfast. She’s been uncommonly quiet, with her head down, methodically washing plates and utensils. Scott’s seen this stance a thousand times, and he braces himself for the explosion.

When it comes, it's not the bomb he expects.

“After you got locked up, I went to see Doctor Pym,” Maggie says quietly, hands still busy in the sudsy water. Scott eyes her, sees her shoulders are shaking, her whole body vibrating with anger.

This is not a kind of anger he’s familiar with. Maggie’s not a bottler, she doesn’t tremble with her emotions, she expresses them with flashing eyes and gesturing arms, planted feet and loud words. This… this is new, and it worries him. “Why?”

Maggie sighs, pulls her hands from the water to rinse them. “To see if there was anything he could do,” she says, turning to lean against the counter and face him, but with all her attention on the towel she’s using to dry her hands. You said he used to work for the government, so I thought maybe he’d have some pull. Some favor or another he could call in to get you out.”

Scott blinks, because out of all the things she could have said to him, that was the very last thing he expects to hear. “You wanted to get me out?” he asks, because he’s not entirely sure he heard it correctly. “I thought you’d be pissed at me.”

“Oh,” she says, with a flash of a more familiar anger sparking through her eyes, and she glares at him for a second. “I _am_ pissed at you. Don’t think I’m not.”

He smiles, because it’s oddly reassuring. “Then why’d you try to spring me?”

Maggie … _deflates_ , all the anger and tension draining out of her shoulders, slumping back against the counter and rubbing her forehead tiredly. “Because,” she says, “Captain America asked for your help. Of course you went. Anyone would have. _I_ would have.”

If she’s not pissed that he went, there’s only one thing left she could possibly be upset about. “I know I should have talked to you—” he begins, sitting back down at the table.

“Damn right you should have talked to us!” Maggie snaps, crossing her arms. “When you became Ant-Man, Scott, I knew things would come up where you wouldn’t have time to give us a heads up, but flying off to Germany? You could have called, at least before Cassie had to see her father destroying an airport on the news. And you don’t have the excuse of not having enough time either. You could have called from the plane.”

Scott winces, because yeah, that’s bad. A dozen defenses pop into his head, but when he got out of prison the first time, he’d sworn to be a good father, and passing the buck here isn’t going to help him do that. “Yeah,” he says instead. “I definitely screwed up there. I’m sorry, Maggie. I wasn’t thinking. It won’t happen again.”

Maggie lets out a long, drawn-out sigh, pushes off the counter and comes to sit at the table across from him. “I know, Scott,” she says softly. “And not just because it might not ever be possible to go back to the United States.”

That statement shatters between them, and silence falls. Scott wants to say something, anything, to break it again. He wants to apologize again, ask about Cassie’s school, anything and everything to pretend that this situation is normal, even for five minutes. Instead, he asks, “What’d he have to say? Pym, I mean. When you went to go see him?”

For a long, breathless moment, Maggie just looks at him with pity. “Oh Scott. I don’t understand how you can work for someone like that.”

There’s a pit opening up in his stomach, and he swallows. “Like what?”

Maggie twists her fingers together on the table top, stares at them as they twine. “He cared more about his technology than the man inside it,” she says, and Scott knows that, has _always_ known that, but it still hits him like a sucker punch to the jaw. “I think he was planning on trying to break into the Raft to get it back. He said he couldn’t leave the suit with the government, because the Starks were greedy and opportunistic and..." She shakes her head slowly. “I’m proud that you’re Ant-Man, Scott, but does it have to require working with someone who doesn’t seem to give half a damn about your safety or well-being?”

And Scott really, _really_ wants to argue with her that Hank’s come around recently, that he’s not as egotistical and abrasive as he seems… but he doesn’t say a word, because he’d be lying through his teeth. He has to swallow back the lump in his throat, because even though he’s not surprised, it still hurts. “Dammit, Hank,” he mutters, presses a hand against his temple.

“I met Hope,” Maggie continues, and now she’s hesitant. “She seems nice.”

From uncomfortable to awkward. “Yeah,” he says, nodding too fast and speaking a little too much. “Yeah, she’s great. She’s smart and successful and I’m totally not in her league and…”

“We talked.” The corners of Maggie’s mouth are twitching, probably in response to the blood draining out of his face. “She’s actually lovely. She, uh… She wanted me to tell you, if I saw you before she did, that she decided to sign the Accords under her mother’s old code name.”

Scott swallows, hard. If things had been different, if Sam’s call had come in at a later time, his name might have been on the damn thing right under Hope’s. Emotions tumble through his head, churning through his thoughts like water over jagged rocks. He clears his throat a couple of times, and says, “Hank must have loved that.” It’s a little thicker, a little more strangled, than he hoped it would be.

Maggie shakes her head. “I don’t know how we’re getting out of this one, Scott. It’s bad. I mean, it’s really bad.”

“I know,” he says softly, and wants to promise her that it will all be okay, that he'll fix it, that she can go back to her life, that it’ll never happen again. But the words ring hollow in his head, get stuck in his throat, won’t leave his mouth. In the end, all he can say is, once again, “I’m sorry, Maggie.”

And he knows it’s not enough. It will never be enough.

\-----

_Now_

Scott stands at the door to the workshop, looking in at the last place in the world he wants to be. The sum of his interactions with Stark have amounted to the brawl at the Leipzig/Halle Airport, and five seconds of failed snark at the Raft. As first impressions go, being on the opposite side of a grudge match isn’t exactly the best one he could have made.

“C’mon, do I _have_ to?” he whines, looking over his shoulder and instantly regretting it. No one should ever have to see their ex-wife and current sort-of girlfriend standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their arms crossed and the same amused-but-unyielding expression on their faces. It’s just downright _creepy._

“We all have to live here, Scott,” Hope says firmly. “So yes, you have to.”

“Besides,” Maggie says, “you owe him.”

“I kinda do, don’t I?” Scott looks in the window again, eyeing Stark as he hunches over his workbench with a soldering iron in one hand. “He looks busy, though. I should come back at a different time. The door’s probably locked, anyway.”

He didn’t know he could actually _hear_ Hope rolling her eyes as she scoffs and moves up to the door. “My father’s not right about everything,” she says pointedly, and thumbs the biometric lock. The door lock clicks, and the biometric screen turns green. “There. Door not locked. And if Tony wasn’t up for company, FRIDAY would have suspended my access.” Her eyes go up slightly, but her voice doesn’t change. “Right, FRIDAY?”

“You’re correct, Hope,” FRIDAY says, and Scott wonders how she gets the AI to be so friendly with her. FRIDAY’s never been anything but cool on the few occasions he’s spoken with her. “Boss says Jiminy should come in and get this over with so they can both get on with their day. He’s under orders to neither bite nor shoot him.”

Hope arches an eyebrow at Scott. “Jiminy?” she asks in an undertone.

“By that, boss means Mr. Lang,” FRIDAY says. “He says Mr. Lang should get it.”

Scott flushes, flustered, remembering fiddling with the insides of the Iron Man armor. _This is your conscience. We haven’t spoken lately._ “I get it,” he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess it’s meant to be a joke.”

“There you go,” Maggie says encouragingly, and pushes Scott forward with a hand between his shoulder blades. “He wants to talk. Go inside.”

“Oh yeah, under orders to neither bite nor shoot sounds like a rousing endorsement of talking,” Scott says, but lets himself be pushed through the door as Hope opens it. “By the way, not really loving this ganging up on me you’re doing.”

“Your objections have been noted,” Hope says. “We’ll discuss them at the next meeting.”

“It’s not fair!” he calls as the door shuts again behind him, effectively locking him in with Stark.

“If you joined the Avengers with the notion that fair is a thing they do,” Stark says, still bent over his soldering, “I have something to tell you, and you’re probably not going to like it.” The quiet hiss of the solder fizzles out, and Stark turns around in his chair, pushing his safety goggles to the top of his head. “I’m allergic to apologies, just so you know.”

Despite himself, Scott finds himself starting to grin. “And me without an epi-pen.” His smile falters in the next moment, though, because it’s starting to occur to him on a real, physical level that the boogeyman Pym built up in his mind, out of the three-piece suit and the Iron Man armor, looks like a normal person. Like he could be anyone at all in the world. He’s not faceless corporate evil. He’s not Darren Cross. He’s… goddammit. He’s an engineer. Like Scott. “Mr. Stark... “ He stops, head tilting quizzically. “Dr. Stark? Iron Man? What do I call you?”

“Most people just settle on _Tony,”_ Stark says, eyebrows slightly raised, “and vary inflection with how irritated I’ve made them.”

“Tony, then.” Scott clears his throat, takes a hesitant step forward, thinks twice, stays by the door. “I, uh…”

Stark waves him off before he can do much more than stutter over those five syllables. “Yeah, I get it, Jiminy,” he says, and something dark and haunted passes through his eyes. “Cap calls, you come running. He has that effect on people. All that gosh-golly Boy Scout honor and apple pie wholesomeness sucks everyone in. He’s like a whirlpool in spangly tights.” He eyes Scott, and Scott fidgets uncomfortably under the weight of that gaze. “I also understand that your… mentor? Father-in-law? God, condolences on that. Not for Hope. I like her. Anyway. Apparently Pym wasn’t terribly charitable towards me.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Scott says. “Another way would be complete nuclear meltdown whenever your name came up. He worked with your father, I guess.”

Stark’s mouth twitches again. “Like Rogers, Dad had an effect on people,” he says. “Only instead of apple pie and Boy Scouts, it was bourbon and condescension. He wasn’t so much a whirlpool that drew people in as he was a wind tunnel that kept people away. Mom was the people person.”

Scott knows Stark— _Tony—_ didn’t say it, but he hears _before the Winter Soldier murdered them_ anyway, and wants to shrink away for the part he played in it all. “I’m sor—”

“Awp!” Tony says, cutting him off with a sharp wave of his hand. “Allergies. Apologies. Don’t. No thanks necessary either. Let’s call this whole conversation _we’re good_ , and leave it at that. Well, that and three conditions.”

Conditions. He can handle conditions. Still. He hesitates before agreeing. “What are they?”

He gets the ghost of a smile. “Good. You're learning. Always remember to ask _how high_ when someone's asking you to jump.”

“Is that one of the conditions?”

Tony snorts. “No. Just life advice.” He clears his throat and raises a finger. “First condition: next time I tell you to give me back my Rhodey, you give me back my Rhodey.”

That one’s easy. Scott has no problems with that. “Done.”

Tony adds a finger to the one already in the air. “Next: I no longer have the time or the interest to do everything the Avengers need done. Despite my albeit well-deserved reputation of being a control freak, I actually could use a hand around the workshop. You have a degree in electrical engineering? It gets put to use.”

Scott frowns faintly at that, because it seems like there’s something Tony isn’t saying there, but he wisely keeps his mouth shut instead of asking for more details. “I can do that,” he says. “What’s the last one?”

Tony swallows. “You tell Laura that we’re good,” he says. “Because she’s relentlessly caring, and every time I talk to her, I end up doing something for my own good I actually don’t want to do.”

Scott can’t help laughing. “You want help avoiding someone _caring_ at you? You know how many kinds of messed up that is?”

Tony scowls. “People I like way better than you have suffered for saying less, Lang.” A very brief pause. “But I may have been made aware of that already.”

“Just so we’re clear.” He shakes his head, raises an eyebrow at Tony’s expectant expression. “What, now?”

“Yes, now. The sooner the better. She might come looking for me otherwise.” Tony points across the workshop to a vacant, bare bench. “That’s yours. Come back when you’re done. I’ve got upgrades that need installing on just about everything. They’ll be on the bench when you get back.”

Scott pauses, sneaking suspicion dawning into sudden realization. “I’m going to end up regretting this deal, aren’t I?”

Tony smirks, then turns around and slides his safety glasses back down over his face. “I told you to ask _how high,_ Jiminy. Not my fault you’re a slow learner.”


	2. Part II: Natasha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is only a 'then' section for this chapter, as most of the 'now' will get covered in _Aftermath 5: The Swear Jar_.

_Then_

After all this time, she should be used to walking away.

From the age of eight, her life has been a series of preparations to pack up and leave at a moment’s notice. She doesn’t collect trinkets, she doesn’t have an extensive wardrobe, she still keeps a bag packed with the essentials hidden under a floorboard  or in the boxspring of her mattress. At any given second, she could blow her cover, need to flee her mission, be required to leave on a job.

Then she let herself fall out of practice, lured and lulled by the security of living as a fulltime Avenger, first at the Tower and then at the Compound. She can’t remember the last time she checked on her bag. Can’t remember the last time she took it with her on a mission. Can’t even remember what she packed in it.

She’s gotten soft.

The Avengers Compound might be the last place Ross and his minions expect her to go, but it’s definitely the first place they’d look. Natasha holes up in the woods around the compound for two days, until the heavy military presence dies down a little. She’s sore and cranky by the time she crawls out of the trees, an uncommon headache throbbing behind her eyes.

Soft, slow. Out of practice. Lazy.

 _Sloppy,_ says the phantom Madame B still dwelling in the back of her mind.

She’s cold, shivering, as she crosses the lawn under the cover of darkness, avoiding the handful of JSOC goons left to guard the place. Shock, she figures, finally setting in. It’s a reaction she’s had before. She has it under control. Though she doesn’t think she can afford to, she takes her time scaling the wall to the balcony of her suite, pulling herself hand over careful hand.

She has a bad moment when she can’t remember where she put her emergency bag, has to sit down when her throbbing head brings a wave of vertigo with it. She chances rummaging as quietly as she can through her medicine cabinet and dry-swallows three naproxen, remembering at the last second how her pipes rattle when she turns on the cold water in the sink.

She moves swiftly through the room, alert for the tread of heavy boots outside her door. She hasn’t lost too much of her edge; her bag is fully packed with the necessities for life on the run. She’s accumulated a lot of stuff, and grits her teeth against the pangs of regret she feels when she has to leave each one behind. Still, there are things she cannot bear to part with. A worn copy of _Heart of Darkness,_ gifted to her by Bruce three Christmases ago. A scarf that was a birthday gift from Pepper. The slim photo album documenting the candid moments of the Avengers.

She should leave it behind. It’s sentimental and ridiculous, photos of a life that no longer exists. It will do nothing more than take up precious room in her pack, room that might be better put to use for weapons or medical supplies. She should put it back on the shelf where it resides, forget it exists, resolve herself to shedding all the memories it holds. She should leave it behind.

She slides it into her bag instead.

\----

It’s three in the morning when she gets to the Barton farm. Despite the lateness of the hour, there’s a dim light shining in the window of the living room. Natasha hesitates for a moment, staring at the window and thinking of Clint, bitter and sullen, as the JSOC agents cuffed him and led him away.

_Are we still friends?_

_Depends on how hard you hit me._

“Fuck,” she mutters, resting her head against the steering wheel. Her skull feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, and her shoulders are throbbing, have been since she left New York State. She shouldn’t be here, and she knows that. She’s got a target on her back now, and she shouldn’t be on Laura’s doorstep, bringing it with her.

Problem is, she’s got nowhere else to go.

“Fuck,” she says again, hopelessly, and kills the engine. Her eyes are gritty and she just wants to crawl into the back seat and sleep for a year. But she climbs out of the car, mindful of the fact that she has a head start, but sooner or later, Ross is going to become aware of Clint’s marital status and the location of the farm. She’s on the clock here.

She staggers up the walk, carrying her bag in a deathgrip even though her hands feel weak. She learned her lesson in Toledo, where she borrowed the car from an old SHIELD safe house the government hasn’t gotten around to gutting. The shoulder strap presses on something bruised, making her want to collapse and cry with the pain.

For the first time Natasha can ever recall, the front door is locked when she tries it. Her lips thin and she shakes her head, but she goes back down the steps to the flowerbed, bends and wiggles rocks until she finds the hollow one, then unlocks the door with the key she finds inside. She closes the door as quietly as she can, because through the entry to the den, she can see Laura curled up in an armchair with an afghan thrown over her.

The click of the door wakes Laura anyway. She’s instantly alert, eyes snapping open as she struggles out of the chair, exhaustion making her body sluggish. “Nat?”

“It’s me,” she says, and moves out of the shadows of the porch so Laura can see her better. Natasha tries not to flinch at the hopeful, expectant look Laura has, peering behind Natasha. “It's…just me.”

Laura's always carried her stress in her shoulders, and it's no exception now. “Where's Clint?” Her voice is deceptively calm. It’s only because Natasha’s known her for so long that she can hear the anger, fear, worry and grief all but drowning her voice.

Natasha’s mouth tightens and she shakes her head. “Taken,” she says, before Laura’s eyes can do more than widen. “He’s fine. Banged up. But headed to prison.” She hesitates for a moment before adding, “I’m sorry.”

She wonders if she really has any right to say that.

Laura inhales sharply, and all the blood drains from her face as she sways on her feet. Natasha makes an abortive step forward, cut short by Laura raising her hand and shaking her head wordlessly.

Laura stands like that for a moment, her head down, hair in her eyes, hand still upraised forlornly. Then she raises her head, drops her arm. “What do you need?” she asks, calm and normal. Only the ashen cast of her skin betrays what Natasha is sure is an inner torrent of pain and misery.

“Access to the safehouse,” Natasha says promptly, choosing not to think about all the reasons why she shouldn’t be asking for anything from this woman right now, but is asking anyway. “A hot meal. A night’s sleep. Ibuprofen.” _A friend,_ she thinks, but doesn’t verbalize it. “Hair dye. ”

Laura tilts her head quizzically. “You’re going on the run? But… why? You signed the Accords. Shouldn’t you be...” She trails off, and it breaks Natasha’s heart to see the slow creep of suspicion turning to realization and betrayal.

“It’s complicated, Laura.”

Pale as a ghost, grey as the grave, Laura swallows hard and looks at Natasha with huge eyes that might be frightened or furious, Natasha can’t tell. “Uncomplicate it,” she says tightly.

Natasha hears the death knell of her friendship with Laura, but there’s no running from this right now. So she squares her shoulders, grits her teeth against the screaming throb of her head, and starts talking.

When she’s finished, Laura is white-knuckled and tight-lipped, and her eyes… Christ, her eyes are going to haunt Natasha for years to come, she knows that already. Bright and shimmering and so, so hurt. Natasha lets her words trail off into silence, and just stares helplessly at Laura, even though she really, _really_ wants to avoid meeting those eyes.

Without a word, Laura stands, goes to the fridge and pulls the cookie jar from the cupboard over it. She yanks the key off the bottom and, trailing tape out of a tight fist, carries it back over to the table. Natasha forces herself to look up, meet Laura’s accusatory, betrayed, bewildered gaze.

The key tinkles on the table, rattling metallically. Laura sears Natasha to the soul one more time and, still silent and bloodless, turns and walks away. Natasha feels the abyss open between them, knows this is not something that will be easily forgiven. If it’s ever forgiven. She hears Laura go up the stairs, and the quiet click of the bedroom door makes her flinch, because it echoes with finality.

She sits at the kitchen table for a long time after Laura leaves, staring at the key. “Fuck,” she sighs, lost and resigned, then picks the key up and goes out to the barn to open the hidden trap door and raid Clint’s safehouse for supplies.

\-----

She doesn't stay at the Barton farm after all. Even though Laura stopped talking to her, Natasha knows she could have had at least a night of sleep, but her own guilt and shame won't let her. She hits the road again, after pausing long enough to dye her hair, bolt down an MRE that tastes like cardboard, dry-swallow more naproxen and change the license plates with spares from Clint's stash.

She drives like she's being hunted, though she's seen no sign of pursuit yet, sleeping when she absolutely has to and pushing herself when she can. More often than not now, her hands and fingers are numb, alternately tingling, and a low-grade headache is her constant companion.

She crosses the border into Mexico and makes it to Tijuana, where she ditches the car in favor of a plane to Argentina. The last thing she remembers is her head bouncing off the back of the seat during some minor turbulence, and pain explodes through her neck and skull. 

When she wakes up, she's in a hospital in Argentina, where doctors tell her she's a very lucky woman to have traveled so long and far with fractured vertebrae without sustaining permanent injury to her spinal cord. She panics when she can't move her legs, but the doctors assure her it's temporary.

They don't need to say  _we hope_ for Natasha to understand she's not guaranteed to fully recover. They ask her how it happened and Natasha says _I don't know._ At first, it's the truth, but she's got nothing to do but watch telenovelas and think for eight weeks. 

The goddamn shipping crate. It has to be the shipping crate. 

It's two months before she can leave the bed, hooked up in traction the entire time. Six months before she can walk without assistance. Ten months before she returns to the United States, bitter and angry, because two months of lying on her back and eight of intensive physical therapy provide plenty of time for rage to grow. She’ll never be the agent she was. She made a nearly complete recovery, but nearly isn't full. And it burns in her like acid and lava, pulls muscles tight and snaps tendons roughly when she twists in ways her body remembers moving but no longer should. 

She's nothing but rage anymore, because if she isn't the best she can possibly be, then what the hell good is she doing? She's angry, angry and bitter, and she buries it deep when Steve comes to get her from her beachfront convalescence, needing her expertise. She just doesn’t know who she’s more angry at: Wanda, for throwing her into the shipping crate, Tony and Steve, for not backing down, or herself, for not staying out of it like she should have done in the first place.


End file.
